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Adventures with a Rental Car Did you ever have mishaps with rental cars? Seems to me, every time I have one something happens. Flat tire....speeding ticket....hmmm, and my all-time favorite.... the yellow paint incident. This one particular time when I had my car in the shop, the dealership leased me a beautiful, very sharp, bright-red Grand Am for the weekend. Not bad! Now when I painted on the Downtown Canal in Indianapolis, I always had an inner-city mission bring teens to paint with me on Friday afternoons after school. At the end of the day, the would help me straighten up, clean brushes and load the gallons of paint in my car, since there was no place for storage on the CanalWalk. When I got home that fateful night, I opened the trunk to haul the paint into the shed, and was so dismayed to discover that the top had not been tamped down on the gallon of bright yellow paint. It had tipped over and was creating this huge puddle in the middle of the grey felt trunkliner. I dashed into the house, brought out a couple rolls of paper towels and newspapers to lay my paintbrush case on, and then hauled the other gallons of paint from the trunk. Sheesh, what a mess!!!! After everything else was wiped down and properly stored, I now turned to the grey and yellow trunk of this beautiful Grand Am. I sopped and wiped as best as I could and had filled up a trash bag full of yellow-soaked paper towels. I was getting no where fast! Then a brilliant idea hit me. I drove over to a local car wash and parked in one of the coin-operated bay areas. You see, I had this splendid thought of using a fine spray to push the paint to the center and then wipe it up. However.... when I put in the coins, immediately this "WHOOSH" of water blasted into the trunk, cascading down onto the paint, which exploded, splattering me and the whole trunk, dribbling over the outside of the car, and splashing the car wash with bright yellow paint!!!! OK, now I'm stressed!! I quickly sprayed off the outside of the car, the bay area and myself and then stared in the trunk. I wiped up what yellow paint I could, and as I worked, I got another brilliant idea. Now, I know that most trunks have a drainage hole. So, being the smart blond that I am, I drove into another bay area, carefully centering the trunk of this beautiful rental car over the drainage hole of the bay area. I chucked in another bunch of quarters, being careful to aim the whoosh-gun out into the air. Just a trickle...ok. So I carefully, as I intended to in the first place, sprayed the yellow paint towards the center of the trunk. I sprayed and sprayed. And sprayed. Suddenly a mound of bright yellow foam arose over the spare tire! Hmmm. Not good. There is now a yellow lake in the trunk. Think there was this little cap that needed to be taken off the drainage hole.... Crawl under car. Can't budge the thing. Then I get another brilliant idea. I back the car up to the vacuum hose and chucked in some more quarters. Leaning over into the trunk, I start sucking up my bright yellow lake. Takes awhile, but I finally can see the bottom of the greyish felt. Meanwhile, the back of my mind is registering another weird sound. With great trepidation, I peer over my shoulder and am dismayed to discover something very horrible. Out over the top, all around the sides of that huge round vacuum sweeper, rivers of yellow are pouring down, splashing onto the concrete, my rear end, and the rear end of that beautiful red Grand Am. AAUUGGHH! Quickly wiping my behind off, I pull the car into the bay area again and chuck down more quarters. I spray off the exterior of the red car, taking care to make sure the chrome wheels are free of yellow. Then I tackle my own rear end, back, legs and hair. Now I'm totally soaked, front and back! As the water slows to a trickle, I look sadly back at the tubby little sweeper that now has yellow stripes down the sides, and the yellow rivers on the concrete drive. Can't reach it with the spray. Can't be helped. I wonder vaguely whether they have video cameras on site. I could bore you with the two-hour process of scrubbing and wiping that I endured to finally get that yellow paint off the grey felt liner of that rental car. But I'll be gentle. Finally the only visible sign of my traumatic experience was a faint yellow ring where the original puddle had been. That next Monday morning, I drove over to the leasing company and quietly dropped off the keys, not looking anyone in the eyes, not wanting to be identified in a police line-up, hoping to heaven that no one would check on the slightly wet trunk. They didn't. I escaped with my life! It took me awhile to stop jumping whenever the phone rang. I was having nightmares about someone renting a beautiful red Grand Am, running over a nail and having a flat tire. Imagine their shock when they opened the trunk and took out that bright yellow donut tire!!! |
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thanks for sharing, cheers May the Lord bless you and keep you
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